


Heroes and Villains

by FindingFeathersSeanchaidh



Category: Magnum P.I. (TV 2018)
Genre: Crime Fighting, Eventual Romance, F/M, Riggy, Romance, set somewhere in season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29437023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FindingFeathersSeanchaidh/pseuds/FindingFeathersSeanchaidh
Summary: When Magnum and Higgins are tasked with investigating the disappearance of a wealthy client's property, the investigation leads slightly farther from home than usual. Magnum, however, is stuck on the island by circumstance, so someone else goes in his place.
Relationships: Juliet Higgins/Orville Wilbur Richard "Rick" Wright
Comments: 45
Kudos: 15





	1. Motive

They say a landslide can start with a single pebble, or an avalanche with a single snowflake. Some even say the same of love. Few can spot which snowflake in the storm tipped the balance though.

It began like every other case: with a client. This client, like so many others, was a wealthy collector of beautiful things, one of which had disappeared. Their job was to retrieve it. Simple.

It didn’t end simple.

Niall Jenkins had been born into money and had only made more of it throughout his long life. It had been enough to indulge him in his hobby of studying ancient civilisations. His collection of antiquities was one of the best protected on the island. Both Magnum and Higgins had consulted on a recent security upgrade. Yet somehow his newest acquisition had vanished from its case. Jenkins refused to accept the possibility of an inside job. Magnum still maintained there was no other possibility available. Higgins, ever the buffer between her partner and his more easily irritated clients, was determined to examine every aspect of the case before forming any solid conclusions.

Tapping her notebook against her hand, Higgins wandered round the remainder of the collection. The rest was all here. A collection of four canopic jars sat, undisturbed, in their case. A bronze cat, no bigger than a soap dispenser, remained in silent face-off with an equally sized bronze Horus falcon. She paused by a carved ebony head of Anubis. There was something a little familiar in the long muzzle and alert ears.

“Hey look,” chortled Magnum, wandering up behind her, “it’s Zeus and Apollo’s great, great grandfather!”

“Honestly Magnum, don’t be ridiculous!” Higgins scoffed. “Anubis was the jackal headed god of the ancient Egyptians. Jackal, not dog. Everybody knows that!”

“He was indeed,” agreed Jenkins. “Although, it must be said that the statuary of Egyptian dogs shows them to be not entirely dissimilar. Not that I have any in my collection for comparison, sadly. That piece is, in itself, quite rare. It cost a tad more than it was estimated, but worth it to have the honour of protecting such ancient beauty.”

“You have many beautiful things, Mr Jenkins,” replied Higgins, smiling politely.

“Ah, this is but the tip of the iceberg, as they say,” grinned the collector. “Do you recall the jewellery collection I showed you last time you were here?”

Higgins nodded. “Was something taken from there as well?”

“No,” Jenkins shook his head. “There is, however, a new acquisition I think you might like to see. Another Egyptian antiquity. Do follow me, please.”

With a quick glance at each other, Higgins and Magnum followed Jenkins to the special jewellery room they had helped design. In here, gems of the ages glowed in the reflected light of expertly placed illumination. The old man led them to a case at the far end. Sliding a hidden panel to one side to reveal a keypad, he keyed in the code that switched off the case alarm, then took out his large ring of keys and unlocked the case. Opening one side, he reached in and removed a chain of glimmering pea-sized carnelian beads, each set between two small cones of gold, linked to the next by a simple chain link. The necklace writhed in the subtle light of the jewellery room.

“May I?” Jenkins smiled, holding up the necklace to Higgins.

Her eyes went wide. “You want me to wear it? Is that safe?”

“This has survived between two and five thousand years of being buried in the sands of Egypt. A moment or two around your lovely neck will hardly cause great damage, Ms Higgins. Please: humour an old man. I can build the safest housing for these precious items, but no velvet covered mount can ever compare to the neck of a beautiful woman. It is, is it not, where they were intended for after all?”

When they left the Jenkins estate, Higgins hand went to her throat. “I can’t believe I just wore a two- to five-thousand-year-old necklace! I don’t even want to think about what he paid for it!”

Magnum chortled. “I can’t wait to see Rick and TC’s face when we tell them!”

That settled their next port of call. It was lunch time, but the bar was still quieter than it had been before the pandemic. Rick raised a hand in welcome. TC looked round from his stool at the bar, where he was working his way through a bowl of fries.

“Good afternoon, sir, madam,” grinned Rick as they approached, “and what can I get for you this fine day?”

“Oh, the usual, please, barkeep,” laughed Juliet, seating herself next to TC.

“Same,” said Thomas, “and you will never guess what happened to Higgy this morning!”

“Possibly not, but if you tell TC while I’m getting your lunch, I might have to make you actually pay for it,” quipped Rick.

Obediently, if a little impatiently, Thomas waited until they were all gathered at the bar to break the news. “Higgins just wore a fifty-thousand-dollar ancient Egyptian necklace!”

“How much?” all three of his listeners responded, none more so than Higgins herself.

“I said I didn’t want to know how much it was worth!” Higgins chided, swatting at Thomas as he laughed.

“No, you said you didn’t want to think about it, which is not exactly the same,” shrugged Magnum. “Besides, who cares: the old guy wanted his money’s worth. He wasn’t exactly gonna wear it himself! Anyway: it looked good on you.”

“And why were you wearing this necklace again?” Rick asked, trying not to smile at Juliet’s horrified expression and failing miserably.

“Oh, this guy was so smooth,” laughed Magnum, cutting in before Juliet could reply. “He said… What was it again? ‘No velvet covered mount can ever compare to the neck of a beautiful woman’.”

Juliet glared at him.

“Well, whoever he is, at least he has great taste,” laughed Rick, departing in the direction of a customer.

“Amen to that,” laughed TC, nudging Juliet.

Juliet rolled her eyes and laughed with them. It was impossible to stay mad at any of them if the other two were around. Not that she had ever really had cause to be mad at TC or Rick.

“You get any further with the case?” TC asked Thomas. “It wasn’t another fifty thou necklace he lost, was it?”

“Nah,” Magnum shook his head. “It was a little stone bust of a Pharaoh, maybe about the size of a whiskey glass, about four-and-a-half thousand years old and worth over a quarter of a million dollars.”

TC whistled, his eyebrows reaching for his hairline. “That much for some old lump of rock that would fit in someone’s pocket?”

Higgins nodded. “Our client bought it from Sotheby’s in London as a telephone bidder and had it shipped straight here. However, when I say shipped, I mean flown; and when I say straight, I mean from London to L.A., where the courier stopped overnight, then from L.A. to Honolulu where you kindly picked him up and flew him directly to our client’s estate.”

“Yeah, that guy was one nervous flier!” TC nodded. “Maybe I would’ve been too if I’d known I was carrying something worth a quarter mill though!”

“You? Never!” smiled Higgins.

“Yeah, I just can’t see how this thing vanished though,” shrugged Magnum. “Not without it being an inside job.”

“Nothing had been tampered with,” explained Higgins. “We’ve just finished checking every piece of security tech in that house. The cameras only start recording if they detect movement, but they hadn’t been tripped, and we checked to make sure nobody had pulled Magnum’s little room temperature trick. The case sensors hadn’t picked up anything. Even the pressure sensor hadn’t been tripped! As far as the security measures go the bust never left it’s case, in fact they seem to think it’s still in there!”

“You sure it isn’t?” Rick asked, drifting back over to his friends in an absence of paying customers.

“It’s a lump of rock, not an icicle!” Juliet retorted with a shrug. “We watched the courier transfer it to the case ourselves!”

“Icicle?” TC queried, one eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, like in that old logic puzzle,” nodded Rick, as if that made everything obvious. When it failed to clear the puzzlement from his friend’s face he continued. “You know: the one where a guy is found stabbed to death in a sauna, but nobody went in or came out with a weapon and no weapon was found in there, just an empty thermos flask. You gotta work out how he was killed, and the answer is there was an icicle in the thermos. He was stabbed with that and then it melted in the heat of the sauna.”

TC aimed a look at his friend.

Rick turned to Magnum for support. “Tommy: back me up here!”

Magnum shook his head and shrugged.

“Seriously?” Juliet chipped in. “It was in one of the first secondary school history lessons I ever got!”

“High school history? Really?” Rick asked, confused. “I think I got it out of a Christmas cracker!”

“The teacher followed it up with a lecture on how studying history is as much about the evidence you can’t see as the evidence you can,” Juliet explained with a shrug. “Maybe that’s where he got it.”

“Yeah, well the evidence I can’t see is how something can disappear without anything thinking it’s even moved!” Magnum quipped. “We saw the bust: it wasn’t made of ice!”

“Could it still be in there, somewhere?” TC suggested.

Magnum shook his head. “I don’t see how. The pressure panel is right under the mount, and the mount is too low to hide the bust.” He looked at Higgins. She was frowning in thought, her eyes fixed on something on the far side of the bar. “What?”

Higgins huffed out a sigh. “Ice isn’t the only thing that melts.”

Magnum and the others followed her gaze to a stack of candles, kept behind the bar in case of power cuts.

“What? Wax?” Magnum laughed. “Higgy: you saw that thing! It was made of gneiss! There’s no way a forger could match all the different colours and patterns in the stone!”

Higgins nodded. Matching the intricate patterns in the photographs of the original would be difficult, perhaps even impossible. Unless…

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” she murmured.

Magnum’s eyes flicked sideways for a moment. “Sherlock Holmes, right?”

“Ah, so you do know something of the classics,” quipped his partner.

“So, what are you thinking?”

“If the bust could not have been removed from the case, then it must still be in the case,” Higgins began. “As there is nothing in the case that could hide it in its original shape, its shape must have changed. The only thing that could do that would be wax, melting into the cavity of the mount. If a wax copy could not be made to exactly match the original, of which we have only photos…”

“Then the photos must have been switched out to match the copy,” finished Magnum. “Okay, but those photos haven’t changed since before the auction. That would mean the crook isn’t over here, they’re over there, in London. So how did the copy over here melt away if the forger is over there?”

Higgins tipped her head to one side. “Magnum, this is Hawaii! The day the bust disappeared was one of the hottest on record and that case isn’t climate controlled like some of the others.”

“Okay,” nodded Thomas, considering. “Okay, so that’s easy to prove: we just check the mount and see if there’s a puddle of wax inside it. It doesn’t solve the case though. I mean, our client gets an answer for the insurers and maybe he can ask Sotheby’s for his money back, but I don’t think they’re going to roll over and accept they sent him a fake.”

“Well, the courier must have been in on it,” Higgins pointed out. “He handled it. He must have been able to tell it wasn’t gneiss.”

“I’m sure it didn’t think he was nice either,” quipped Rick. Juliet rolled her eyes at him.

“And he sure didn’t switch out anything between the airport and the estate,” added TC. “He was right next to me the whole time.”

“That leaves L.A. and London,” said Higgins. “And the photos have been up on the Sotheby’s website from the first notification of the auction.”

“So London, then,” shrugged Magnum. “But we still gotta prove it couldn’t have happened in L.A. if the auction house is gonna cough up.”

“We’ll have to stop off there anyway to fly to London,” Higgins pointed out. “We could stop there, investigate possible avenues, then move on to London when we’re done.”

“Yeah, but even if we only spent one overnight in L.A. and one in London, we still wouldn’t be back here for what? Four days? Five?” Magnum pointed out. “I’m due in court the day after tomorrow. I’m a key witness: I can’t miss it!”

“That’s no problem,” shrugged Higgins. “I’ll go alone. I know London like the back of my hand. I’ll be fine!”

“You’ll be investigating a forgery case worth at least a quarter of a million and probably way more, Higgins,” stated Magnum. “If these guys have done this once, they’ve done it before. They’re probably still doing it! Easily something they’d kill to protect: you are not going alone.”

“Well, you can’t come with me and we can’t let this lie until your court case is over!” Higgins shrugged. “Key witness or not, you can’t just say your piece and jet off in the middle of things and that case could drag on for months. I don’t see that we have any other option.”

Magnum looked at his friends.

“Tommy, come on,” sighed TC. “I’m the only pilot I got and it’s peak tourist season!”

Rick glanced around the bar, then at TC, who shrugged and tipped his head in the tiniest of nods. “But I’m not the only barman I got, and not the only bar owner either. I can go.”

“You won’t be able to bring a gun,” Juliet told him. “And do you have any contacts in London?”

Rick clutched at his chest and gasped in melodramatic fashion. “First you tear me from my dream, then you rob me of my superpowers too? Just because I’m the guy that knows everybody and shoots things really accurately from really far away, people think that’s all I’m good for! I have other skills too, you know!”

Juliet laughed and nodded. “Fine! You may accompany me to London and help me investigate a probably multi-million-dollar forgery ring. Happy?”

Rick grinned. “Ecstatic.”


	2. Means

Los Angeles was a dead end. Juliet hadn’t expected anything else. The flight to Heathrow was spent sleeping or answering questions about London. For all that there had been many, Juliet had to admit her temporary colleague at least had better listening skills than her usual one. Although, to be honest, Zeus and Apollo had better listening skills than Magnum. Well, unless it was important, to be fair. The trip along the M4 and so on from Heathrow to Kensington had been likewise filled with questions. No look of curiosity, however amusing, though, could compare to the look of confusion when the taxi dropped them in Warwick Gardens.

“Why are we stopping here?” Rick enquired taking his bag from the taxi driver.

“We’re staying here,” Juliet smiled, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“For how much?” He followed her to the door.

“For free. Well, I had to have the electricity put on again and suchlike…”

“This place is yours?” Rick frowned, studying her face. “Who lived here? And how long has it been since you’ve been back?”

Juliet winced. “Uh, let’s just get inside. It’s only an apartment up on the fourth floor, not the whole thing. Come on.”

The ‘only an apartment’ turned out to be nearly the size of the guest house at Robin’s Nest, if not more so! Rick followed Juliet along the almost unending hallway as far as the first doorway and stopped. The bag fell from his hand to the floor with a thud.

“Jules?”

Juliet froze. If he’d called her Higgy maybe it wouldn’t have hit her quite so hard. Or Higgins. Juliet, even. No, not that. By the time she turned, he’d wandered into the room. It was by far the largest in the apartment, but with one side occupied by a dining table and piano, and the other the living area, she doubted that would help much. She retraced her steps and followed him into the room.

“This place is amazing!” Rick gaped, walking through the living room half of the open space. He turned and spotted Juliet’s expression. “Sorry. Being back here can’t be easy. Was this…”

“This was the apartment Richard and I bought together,” she finished for him with a terse nod. “I haven’t been back here since I left to hunt down the man who killed him. Sorry: there may still be a few things of his here and there. I never did get round to clearing them out.”

“If you ever decide you want to, and you’d like a friend around…”

“Appreciate it,” Juliet nodded. “Come on: I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping. We’ll have to order in unless we want to sally out to the high street tonight, though it’s still early if you would rather go out. The jet lag’s going to be fun. Drinks wise, we should have wine, beer, scotch and coffee, as long as you drink it black because I don’t even want to think about the state of the fridge.”

“All the essentials then. Got it,” quipped Rick. He saw the smile tug at the corner of Juliet’s mouth and fade. “Lead the way.”

****

The appointment with Sotheby’s was at ten in the morning, with a brisk walk either side of the tube journey to clear the dregs of jet lag from the mind. To say the manager’s reaction to the news was poor was to pass up a perfectly good opportunity to call the man abrasive. How dare they suggest that one of their staff were involved in this! Every staff member was thoroughly vetted and highly trained!

“And yet we have sufficient evidence to prove that the piece could not have been switched while in our client’s possession,” Higgins pointed out primly. “Evidence, I might add, that the Hawaiian police will quite readily verify, having carried out their own, independent investigation with the same results. Therefore, either your courier cannot tell the difference between wax and gneiss, or they are culpable. Which is it to be, sir? Incompetent or untrustworthy?”

“I think he liked us,” joked Rick as they stepped back out onto New Bond Street. “Which way are we going?”

Juliet took his arm and steered him down the street the same direction they had been walking before. “Well, this is where I finally get to say ‘I know a guy’,” she grinned. “Well… gal, really.”

“Oh rub it in, why don’t you!” Rick laughed. “Okay, who are we headed for? Sherlock Holmes?”

“Not quite,” laughed Juliet, “though she’d like to think so! She’s a metropolitan police detective. Works out of New Scotland Yard. She said to pop in any time this afternoon, though she’d let us know if something cropped up.”

“Something more important than a high-end forgery case?”

“She’s CID, not HPD: the organisation is slightly different,” Juliet shrugged. “Now I know we could have walked a half mile back up to the tube station and got there faster, but it’s heading for lunch time and arguing with that old coot has given me quite an appetite so I thought we could walk down, take the scenic route, and grab something to eat along the way. There’s bound to be something on Piccadilly.”

“I am entirely in your hands,” grinned Rick, “though that doesn’t mean we have to go straight to jail without passing go if we can’t afford to pay, right?”

Juliet groaned. “Heavens above! You had to look that up didn’t you.”

“No, British board games were common in Afghanistan, it’s amazing!”

“Uh-huh,” she laughed. “That would be a lot easier to believe if you hadn’t completely missed Bond Street earlier.”

“Ah, ya got me,” he laughed. “Fine: no more puns. Unless you’d care to give it a go. I’d hate to think I have a monopoly on them.”

She tried not to laugh. She really did. She failed.

****

The Victoria Embankment was busy with tourists hurrying to and fro, and queueing for the river cruises. Juliet and Rick leant against the wall, watching the river boats come and go from Westminster Pier. Rick was still working his way through an ice cream cone he’d bought outside Buckingham Palace and managed to make last a leisurely stroll through St James’ Park, down Great George Street to Westminster Bridge and along the Embankment to the pier.

“Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone take so long to eat a blooming ice cream!” Juliet chuckled, turning to face the New Scotland Yard building across the road.

Rick held up two empty hands. “Hey, I’m done, okay! I’m done!”

Juliet looked up at his expression and laughed.

“What?”

She extracted a small hand mirror from her handbag. “You might just want to check…”

Remaining ice cream removed, they headed into the building opposite. Higgins led the way to the reception desk.

“Juliet Higgins for DI McManus. I believe she’s expecting me.”

“One moment please,” replied the officer behind the desk, picking up a phone.

Juliet turned back to Rick and caught him scanning the building around him. “Something wrong?”

“Hmm?” Rick looked back round to her and looked a little sheepish. “You know, for some reason I was expecting a huge glass and steel rectangle or something…”

“Oh, that was the old New Scotland Yard,” Juliet informed him with a wave of her hand. “It only lasted three years, then they moved back here.”

“So, this is the original Scotland Yard, then,” concluded Rick. Confusion flickered across his face when Juliet laughed. “Okay, I’m at least mostly sure there was no pun in there.”

“No, it’s just, um… this is more like the original New Scotland Yard.”

“Original New Scotland Yard,” Rick echoed each word carefully.

“Sort of,” Juliet shrugged.

“Sort of?” Rick frowned, a bemused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“The original Scotland Yard was in Whitehall, but by the end of the nineteenth century, the force had expanded to such an extent that new buildings were required,” Juliet explained, walking over to him. “Technically, the original New Scotland Yard is the pair of red and white striped buildings next door that were built to accommodate the move; however, even they were not enough and, in the thirties, this annexe was added to the complex. Thence followed the brief stay in the building you were expecting and back here about five or so years ago.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me the whole story?” Rick asked eyeing her suspiciously.

“Well, the full story of Scotland Yard would take quite a while,” shrugged Juliet, avoiding his eyes.

“Oh, now I know there’s something!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” breezed Juliet.

“DS Norton will see you now,” called the officer at the front desk, indicating a tall, balding man who had appeared at a nearby door.

Higgins tipped her head at the unfamiliar name. She walked over and held out her hand. “DS Norton? Juliet Higgins. My associate Richard Wright. I was expecting to see DI McManus.”

“There’s been a murder,” stated Norton, as if it were merely the time of day. “She passed your details on to me this morning though. I believe you have a forgery case for me.”

They followed Norton through to a small conference room. He waved them into chairs and offered them water. “I believe DI McManus is a friend of yours Ms Higgins? And you yourself are a private detective. Your partner and you discovered the forgery through a related case?”

Higgins smiled. The phrase had been exactly the one she had used on the phone to her friend. “Yes, a supposed theft from one of our clients.”

“Supposed?” Norton opened his notebook. “May I have the full details?”

She shrugged. “Our client hired us to update his security, then later to oversee the final stage of transit and installation of a piece he purchased from Sotheby’s premises up in New Bond Street via a telephone bid. Another of our associates met the Sotheby’s courier at Honolulu airport and from then on, the piece was never out of the sight of either one of our associates or the cameras in our client’s security system, yet barely a week ago it vanished. We discovered the item had been switched for a wax replacement, which had melted into the base of the mount without tripping the motion sensors of the cameras.”

“And if the original could not have been stolen in Hawaii, it must have been taken before the wax copy entered your client’s possession,” nodded the sergeant. “Have you discussed this with Sotheby’s?”

“This morning,” said Rick. “Let’s say they weren’t overjoyed at the news.”

Norton’s head bobbed thoughtfully. “I can hardly imagine they would be. Do you have the details of the piece?”

Higgins handed over a folded printout of the particulars. The aquiline features of the sergeant started to remind her of a nodding dog as he quietly perused the contents. She cast a glance sideways. Rick was watching the detective carefully.

“I have a few people to reach out to, but one or two names spring to mind,” mused Norton, tapping his lips with his index finger in thought. “There aren’t many people who could forge this in stone, but a wax copy would be considerably quicker, easier and cheaper. Riskier though. There would have to be someone on the inside: anyone who handled it would know immediately. The records would have to be altered to match the photograph to the copy. The higher the risk, though…”

“The higher the reward,” finished Rick and Juliet together.

“They’d need an expert to make sure it passes muster in the photographs though,” added Norton. “There’s a fair few in London, but I can’t point you in any specific direction there. They might be a part of the group as a whole or merely hired on an item-by-item basis wherever their field intersects with that of the item being forged. Do you have a card?”

Higgins handed one over.

“I’m sure you can understand we would be reluctant to be side-lined in this matter,” she enunciated sharply, fixing a steady stare on the official detective opposite. “DI McManus…”

“Is not here and does not tell me or my DI how to run our investigations, as we in turn do not instruct her in how to run hers,” cut in Norton levelly. “However, if you will agree to avoid such things as may alert the culprits to our knowledge of their existence before we can move to apprehend them, and to inform me of any progress you make, I will inform you of any progress we make and, provided you do not force me to do otherwise, look the other way at any investigations you may make yourselves.”

“Tell me: do you guys have competitions to see who can speak the longest without taking a breath?” Rick asked as they left the building.

“Oh yes absolutely!” Juliet trilled, sarcasm in every syllable. “It’s one of our national pastimes, don’t you know! That and causing, investigating, or writing about “‘orrible murders”, like the one next door.”

That caught his attention. “Excuse me?”

Juliet smirked. This side of things was definitely going to be more fun with Rick around than Magnum. She steered him back along the pavement to where the two listed buildings rose above them. This was a story that had to be told _in situ_ , and not while one was hurrying to be fobbed off by the official detective force. It could take a while, and it was undoubtedly a can of worms she would not be able to close easily, because she had spent enough time in London to know what kind of stories “‘orrible murders” led to, and enough time around Rick to know he loved those kinds of stories. Not that they couldn’t afford to take a little time out of their day. The sun was shining; the afternoon was still young, if the day wasn’t; and Rick’s face had just lit up like a kid at Christmas.

“Wait: this was what you weren’t telling me?” Rick grinned. “Someone got murdered _in_ Scotland Yard?”

“Well not murdered exactly,” Juliet chuckled. “But a body _was_ found here while the building was being constructed. Well, _part_ of a body. A woman’s torso. Wrapped up and deposited in the three-month-old cellar.”

“What _just_ her torso?” Rick asked, aghast but grinning with it. “What happened to the rest of her?”

“Oh, they popped up here and there,” Juliet shrugged. “Along with the hacked up body parts of at least three other women. But do you know what they never found?”

“Please tell me it is what I think it is,” he laughed.

“Well, that depends,” smirked Juliet. “If you think it was her head, you’d be absolutely right. In fact, they never identified her _or_ two of the other three! And the murderer was never caught!”

“Oh, that just screams ghost story!” Rick crowed, gesturing so widely that Juliet had to pull him out of the way of a passer-by.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” she laughed, her hands still on his arms. “I don’t actually know if the Thames Torso Murder victims still walk the streets, but a city this old has hundreds if not thousands of ghost stories! I know some of them, but the best people for telling them are the ghost tour guides.”

“As in guides of ghost tours, not tour guides who are ghosts,” clarified Rick seriously, as if it could possibly be the other way round.

Juliet tried to give him the Look she usually gave Magnum when he said something blindingly obvious, but she couldn’t. She could feel the smile struggling to break out. Instead, she settled for sliding her arm through his and leading them back towards Westminster Bridge.

“You got somewhere in mind,” Rick asked, watching her as they walked.

“Well, I suppose you have a choice,” she grinned, glancing up at him. “We know our forgers must have needed an expert and, as it happens, I know a place where we might find a few.”

“Okay,” nodded Rick, “And the choice is?”

Juliet paused and turned to look at him. “The choice is: do we walk a couple of meandering miles through the City of London, and I will tell you whatever I know about the places we pass on the way, ghosts or otherwise, with the terrible story-telling skills I have; or do we take the underground, get there faster and maybe find time to fit in an official ghost tour before we leave?”

Rick appeared to consider for a moment, then reached a decision. “Both is good. Just don’t make me sit in the silent tube of doom again. Walking is much better for you anyway.”

****

He had to give her credit. Higgy wasn’t the best storyteller he’d heard, but she certainly wasn’t the worst, especially when it came to stories she knew well or enjoyed. It easily took them twice as long to cross the breadth of the city with all the stops and diversions. It didn’t matter: Rick loved watching her like this. Relaxed. Happy. Her face would light up whenever they neared a favourite spot, or whenever she told a well-remembered tale. Her smile was infectious, but he couldn’t help wondering if they had perhaps done the wrong thing in persuading her to stay in Hawaii, or not to take the job MI6 has offered her. If this place made her this happy, wasn’t this where she would rather be?

“What’s going on in there?” Juliet asked, nudging him with the arm that was still threaded through his.

“Hmm?” Rick blinked at her. “Oh, nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, you were miles away,” she laughed.

He felt her free hand come to rest on the arm she had already claimed as her own. Maybe, if the place hadn’t been so busy, or noisy, or if they had been in a hurry to get anywhere, it might have felt odd, but wandering arm-in-arm through the ancient and modern that crowded together in the City, talking nigh constantly, and avoiding tourists and travellers alike, had made it something of a necessity. It was just quiet corners like this that made him worry that maybe he was getting a little too close.

“Uh,” he ran his free hand through his hair, searching for words and finding few. “Um, I just… It seems like you’ve missed this place. And I… I was just wondering if…”

“If what?” And suddenly Higgy was back. “If I regretted staying in Hawaii? Don’t forget the reason getting marriage licenses for both TC and Magnum raised suspicions in the first place! We would never have gone through such shenanigans if I’d wanted to come back here. Besides: you’re seeing it in the height of summer, when the place is full of holidaymakers and the natives are melting in the heat, and very often the road is too! Come back in the middle of winter! I’ll take year-round sunshine and crystal-clear waters any day! No, it’s just, well… It’s nice to share it with someone. That’s all.”

“Someone who likes ghost stories,” he added, holding up a finger.

“Yes, I cannot deny that is a bonus,” she agreed with a small smile. “London has plenty of those, and we haven’t even got near the lost rivers and Room 333 yet!”

“Wait, lost rivers?” Rick echoed, a grin spreading across his face when he saw her eyes roll. “And what is Room 333?”

“There are several smaller rivers and streams that feed into the Thames,” Juliet shrugged. “Over time they were built over, first partially, then completely. Then they were forgotten. There are tunnels though, and a sewer, and an urban legend that a wild boar once escaped into the tunnels, before they were fully blocked up, and was never seen again. Something of that ilk anyway.”

“And the ominous Room 333?” Rick prodded. “That’s gotta be a hotel. Haunted right?”

Juliet let out a sigh with a smile and a nod. “Haunted hotel room indeed, and no, before you ask: we cannot go visit that one. The Langham Hotel may be one of the most haunted hotels in London, but it’s also one of the most exclusive. One night in an ordinary room in that place is hundreds of pounds. I dread to think what it would cost for us to spend a night in that one!” A frown flickered across Juliet’s face. “I mean an evening in that one. I mean… Never mind what I mean: we’re not going. I’m sure there are plenty of haunted hotels back home.”

Rick let her drag him onward again, trying not to laugh at the air of awkwardness that had suddenly descended around Juliet. A smile danced across his lips as he replayed the memory of the phrase “back home” issuing from a native Londoner on her native soil. So, this wasn’t home any more. Well, that was something.

“Bet you don’t get hurricanes over here,” he teased, aiming for a traditional British topic to get the conversation back on track. He grinned when he saw the smile creep back onto her face.

“Not according to Michael Fish anyway,” she laughed. “The good people of Glasgow have a track record of giving them some interesting names when they do hit, though!”

They were wandering up Coptic Street when Rick stopped with a murmur of approval. There was a building rising before him, only the corner of which he had been able to see until now. It was huge, regal, and absolutely dominated the bustling street they were heading for. It also seemed to be where the crowds of people were heading for, and he could see the edge of a queue folding to and fro on itself over the heads of the people on the street. Juliet, who had hopped to a halt finding him suddenly immoveable, looked round at him.

“What?”

“I bet somewhere like that has hundreds of ghosts!” Rick grinned, looking up at the edifice with eyes gleaming.

Juliet followed his jubilant gaze and laughed. “I dare say it does. That’s the British Museum! There’s even a retired underground station somewhere below it that’s supposed to have its own ghost.”

“That?” Rick’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t take his eyes off the palatial building. “It’s huge! It must cost something to get in there!”

“No, just some time in a line and a security check,” smiled Juliet.

“Wait: it’s free?” His face swung back round to her, gaping and wide eyed in disbelief.

She nodded. “Most of the big museums are, in Britain. Come to think of it, I can’t remember one off the top of my head that isn’t!”

The pause that followed only served to broaden Juliet’s smile. Rick could only imagine what his expression was, but a kid in a candy store might be about right. If it made her smile like that, though, he didn’t care how ridiculous it made him look. Haunted hotels, forgotten rivers, free museums, and a whole new city to explore, if only they didn’t have a case to solve.

“Why don’t we stay on a few days after we’ve finished up here,” suggested Juliet, watching him with a thoughtful expression. “We can go on a ghost tour or two, explore some of the museums, and I’ll show you round my old stomping grounds.”

Kid in a candy store didn’t quite cover it.

****

A promise to return once the case was over didn’t make Rick quite as easy to drag away from the British Museum as Juliet had expected. If they’d been in Hawaii, of course, it would be the other way round. He would be leading her to some contact or other and she would either be driving there with him or Magnum, or at least have some idea where she was headed. Here, amongst the holiday hordes, where he hadn’t a clue where he was going, she didn’t dare let go of him. Still, she didn’t expect him to look quite so surprised when she let go of his arm in favour of his hand.

“Come on, this way,” she called through the noisy crowds of Great Russell Street. “We’ll come back, I promise. Maybe when it’s quieter though.”

Rick blinked at her and shook his head slightly. “Important case work to do. Yeah. Right. Got it. Of course. Where to now?”

They crossed the road and headed up into the quieter realms of Bloomsbury Street, round a terrace fronted corner of the museum block. Crowds no longer a problem, Juliet let her hand slip from his with the tiniest of momentary frowns.

“So, uh… Where exactly are we headed?” Rick asked, surveying the neat brick buildings lining the street. “This looks as though it’s taking us into the leafy suburbs or something.”

Juliet looked up, her train of thought derailing. “Oh that’s just Bedford Avenue, and Bedford Square Gardens beyond that,” she sighed, latching on to something else to occupy her mind. “No, while this area may look entirely residential, it is actually the houses of academia that take up most of the area we’re passing. Behind these buildings is the British Museum, and then further up, behind the museum, we have the buildings of the University of London, after that we have University College London, or UCL. We, however, will be turning right between the two universities, then left up Malet Place into the interior of UCL to the Petrie.”

“The Petrie?” Rick echoed, looking round at her.

Juliet glanced round at him then back to the road ahead, a smile warming her face. “Sorry, the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, to give it it’s full title. I think you’ll like it.”

“And your contact is gonna meet us there?”

“She works there,” she smirked. “She’s been one of the curators there for years. She knows everyone in this field, at least she did when I knew her. I can’t imagine that’s changed much. Oh, that reminds me: I’m not Juliet Higgins while we’re there, I’m Sarah, Sarah Emerson.”

“And that answers my next question,” grimaced Rick. “Anything else I should know before we start playing James Bond here? I mean not that I wouldn’t make a great Bond next time they need a new one…”

“Oh, don’t you dare!” Juliet laughed. “James Bond always has been and always will be an Englishman!”

“Wasn’t the first one Scottish?”

“British then.”

“And there was an Australian one too. And…”

“Okay, fine, I give up: next time I hear about a casting call for a new James Bond I will send them your name.”

“Thank you, Higgy.”

“All of it.”

“Hey, no fair!”

Juliet’s smile broadened in triumph. “Look, this was one of my first undercover jobs. All I had to do was go undercover as a student and charm my way into certain circles. It should have taken a term or two, but various spanners were thrown in the works and I ended up here for an entire academic year. More than that, you don’t really need to know. She’s not going to quiz you on my background and people change a lot in a decade or so. She probably won’t even remember me, but just in case she does, just remember I’m Sarah.”

Doctor Margaret Whitstone didn’t remember Higgins, but that didn’t make her any less useful. “I see so many new faces every year, it has become impossible to keep track of all of them,” she apologised. “How may I help you?”

“Well, my colleague and I are actually investigating a forgery case just now that you might be able to help us with,” Higgins explained, following the curator through the shelves of antiquities. “We’re trying to find out who, locally, would be the best person to speak to about small-scale statuary from the fourth dynasty, and I seem to recall you knew everyone who was anyone in Egyptology, back in the day.”

Doctor Whitstone bobbed her head back and forth. “Back in the day, maybe, but hardly everyone, these days. If you want the best though, you want Doctor John Farnsworth at the British Museum. He’s giving a lecture there tonight – members only, I’m afraid – but I can give him a call and see if he would meet with you afterwards. I wouldn’t even chance it before: he gets in a terrible tizz before lectures, especially if they crop up while he’d rather be working on something else.”

****

Within half an hour they were out in the summer sunshine again. Admittedly they would have been out in under a third of the time, but on the way out, Rick had paused to look at some paintings of faces that didn’t look how he imagined the ancient Egyptians to look. When he had mentioned this to Juliet, she had paused to look down and her face had lit up. She may only have been there for a year, but her cover would have been blown if she didn’t at least try to keep up with the coursework. That had meant studying and, though it was only one year, some of it had stuck. As had most of the names she had made up for those unidentified individuals among the group.

“Hey, where are we going now?” Rick called, turning one way out of the gates of Malet Place and realizing Juliet had turned the other.

“Well, I know you’re not a fan,” she replied, waiting for him to catch up, “but there is no way we are walking all the way back to Kensington and the Piccadilly line runs from Holborn to West Kensington, then it’s just up the road to the Olympia and along the high street to Warwick Gardens. We can stop at the Sainsbury’s for provisions, have something to eat, then update Magnum and the others before heading back.”

“You know they’re ten hours behind us, right, Higgy?” Rick couldn’t help pointing out. “And this is Thomas we’re talking about.”

“True, we’d best wait until not long before we leave, then,” Higgins admitted, with a sigh. “He should be awake by then. Now, you remember what you said about leafy suburbs?”

They turned a bend in the road around the side of an old church and Rick saw a burst of green at the corner opposite the end of the building. As they drew closer, it became clear he was looking at the corner of a large, tree bounded park.

“Now that is Gordon Square Garden,” Juliet pointed out, “but we’re going across the south end of it and down through Woburn Square Garden. That will take us down past some of the University of London’s… less elegant, shall we say, buildings to Russell Square Gardens, then down through Bedford Place to Bloomsbury Square Gardens, then it’s just down Southampton Place and we’re practically there.”

“Tell me,” said Rick, noting the length of the gardens they were walking past, “Are any of these gardens actually ever square?”

“Actually, Russell Square really _is_ a square,” chuckled Juliet, “and plenty of others are too.”

“I guess I’ll just have to take your word for that, Higgy,” sighed Rick, shaking his head in mock sorrow. “There’s just no way we’d get round them all to check in just, say, a day or two extra.”

“Oh, hush,” laughed Juliet, bumping her shoulder into his. “There’s no way you can visit everything in London on your first visit, Rick: it would be information overload! Either that or an extremely long holiday, and don’t you have a bar to run?”

Again, Rick’s sigh was more dramatic than it had to be. Again, he heard her chuckle. The walk through the numerous gardens, square or otherwise was quieter than the main city streets. The thought crossed Rick’s mind that, had they been busier, maybe they would be walking arm in arm through them, instead of just side by side. He shook his head and gave a wry laugh: that was dangerous thinking. Higgins was a friend. She was Thomas’ business partner and boss. She ran Robin’s Nest, where Thomas lived. TC saw her as a sister. Thomas saw her… Rick frowned. He had an inkling that Thomas definitely didn’t see her as a sister. That troubled him. It would have troubled him less if he hadn’t begun to suspect that neither did he.

“Rick?”

There it was again: that jolt of electricity when her hand met his. He had to get past this: there was no way he could spend whole days alone with her, in the apartment she had bought with the deceased love of her life, also called Richard, he couldn’t help but note, and not give something away. He drew in a breath and laughed.

“Just practising for that tube journey,” he grinned. It was an act that hadn’t failed him yet. When the cracks start to show, plaster them over with a laugh and a jest and hopefully things won’t fall apart.

Juliet was studying him with an odd look on her face. “Okay,” she said, eventually, though it was clear to him she still had her suspicions. Of what, he didn’t dare guess.

****

Restocking the kitchen had taken longer than expected, but at least the shepherd’s pie in the oven didn’t need much attention. The biohazard level contents of the fridge were disposed of, then anything well out of date in the cupboards. Rick turned the bottle of brown liquid round in his hands and read, or attempted to read, the label.

“It’s pronounced Wooster,” chuckled Juliet, taking the bottle and checking the date. “It’s probably nigh indestructible too.”

“How?” Rick queried, utterly confused.

“Probably because there’s vinegar and so many spices in…”

“No, how do you get Wooster from that? There’s at least twice as many letters as that!”

Juliet just laughed. “Here,” she said, handing him a bag of groceries. “That’s mostly fridge stuff. Would you start putting it away while I dispose of this bag of horrors, please.”

“Sure, I got it,” he nodded. He watched her leave, a lopsided smile lingering on his face, then turned to his task. There was less to put away than there had been to take out: they had both agreed there was no sense stocking up on food they didn’t know they would need. Juliet had also agreed that, with some caveats, he could choose the food. British food wasn’t something he was overly familiar with, but the trip to the store had been illuminating. He now had a mental list.

****

Juliet wandered back into the living area, alone. They had split the clearing up between them and she had finished her part. There wasn’t really room in the kitchen for someone to be putting the crockery away while someone else was drying it, so she had, upon insistence, left him to it. The only problem was that left her alone with her own personal ghosts. At least it wouldn’t be for long. She wandered over to the piano and edged up the lid. Would it still be in tune after all these years? It wasn’t as though it had had much use. She tried a few keys, then muscle memory took over and the sound of Debussy filled the silent room.

“I didn’t know you could play piano, Higgy,” said a voice from the doorway.

Juliet looked round. Rick was leaning against the doorframe, arms folded, watching her with a slight smile on his face. One corner of her mouth twitched up in a half smile of her own. “My father insisted. He loved music.”

If Rick had thought about asking more, he decided against it. Juliet wondered how much her face was giving away and turned back to the piano with a cough.

As always, it seemed Rick new exactly how to distract her. “Know any Beach Boys?”

Despite herself, Juliet smiled. “No, sorry: can’t say I do. Not to play, anyway. Not from ear: I was never that good.”

“You sound plenty good to me,” shrugged Rick, walking over to lean on the piano instead. “You know, I was once told I was a famous musician in another life.”

“Really?” Juliet’s face brightened. “What was I playing?”

“Uhm,” Rick drew out the syllable in thought.

“Composer will do.”

“Uh, Beethoven’s fifth?”

“You got that from the film, didn’t you?”

“Maybe,” he admitted with a shrug. “It’s not my area of expertise. Sounded good though.”

“Ah. Uh-huh,” nodded Juliet. She laughed. “Do you play any musical instrument at all?”

“I will have you know I am an expert on the kazoo, Ms Higgins,” replied Rick, with all the dignity and pomposity he could muster. “And of course, my singing is legendary!”

Juliet burst into laughter. “I can well believe it! I’ve heard your singing!”

“Oh yeah, well I’ve yet to hear you do better!”

“Oh, I’m quite happy with my musical abilities, thank you,” she smirked. “Come on: let’s call in. If Magnum isn’t awake by now, he ought to be. I can’t see his court case finishing in one day.”

“How much are you hoping he’s asleep?” Rick enquired, watching Higgy retrieve her phone and call his friend. “I mean: you do know what his ringtone for you is, right.”

“Yes, and I’ve heard what he has set for you too,” she chuckled back.

“Hey, that’s a classic!” Rick shot back.

Juliet was saved from having to come up with a reply when the call connected and Magnum’s face filled the screen.

“Good morning, Thomas, this is your seven a.m. wake up call all the way from London,” Higgins grinned.

“You sound cheerful,” Magnum observed. He turned the camera round to show TC and Kumu on the other side of the kitchen island at Robin’s Nest. “Sorry to disappoint, but I’m already awake. Say hi.”

A chorus of greetings did the rounds, then Juliet frowned at the scene before her.

“Kumu, please tell me you’re not feeding him: he is perfectly capable of cooking his own breakfast or, failing that, pouring cereal and milk into a bowl!”

Kumu waved a hand at the camera. “It was a joint effort. We thought you might call about this time, so it’s group breakfasts until you get home.”

“I gotta say, though,” added TC, “I could get used to this.”

“Hey, hold on a minute will you,” said Magnum’s disembodied voice. His face reappeared and the screen blurred as he moved round to join Kumu and TC. “There, that’s better. So, how’d Sotheby’s go?”

“As we expected,” sighed Higgins, with a shrug and a smile. “My contact in Scotland Yard put us in touch with a colleague of hers working on a fraud and forgery operation. He wasn’t the most forthcoming, but he confirmed what we suspected. My contact at the university was more use. She’s managed to arrange an interview with the leading expert in the vicinity this evening.”

“Yeah, we can find out what he knows and pick up one of the evening’s ghost tours on the way back,” added Rick.

“We are not going on a ghost tour on the way back,” Higgy laughed.

“Ghost tour?” TC shook his head in mock disbelief. “Really, Orville?”

“I mean: they’ll have to be good to beat Higgy, here,” Rick added, bumping his shoulder into Juliet’s. “You should hear the story of the torso they found dumped in the first original New Scotland Yard _while it was being built_. There were body parts popping up all over the place, but they just couldn’t get ahead.”

Magnum watched Higgins’ face dissolve in a fit of giggles. “You guys do remember you’re there on a case, not a vacation, right?”

“Oh, do lighten up, Magnum!” Juliet scolded, still laughing. “You do realise this is the first time I’ve been home for more than a day or two in years!”

“Yeah, Tommy,” agreed Rick, “and it’s the first time I’ve been here in, well, ever! Besides: just ‘cause we’re on a case doesn’t mean we can’t have fun while we’re investigating.”

“But I promise we’ll save most of the sightseeing for afterwards,” added Juliet.

“Afterwards?” Magnum queried. He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that.

“Jules and I are gonna take a couple of days once we’ve wrapped things up with the case,” explained Rick.

“I promised him I’d show him round once we’re done,” added Juliet. “You’ll be okay there for a few more days won’t you? Just make sure you look after my boys.”

Magnum’s heart sank. He could say no. He could. It was an option. Apollo and Zeus were clearly blaming him for their mistress’s absence. If Kumu hadn’t been there to feed them, he was pretty sure they’d have had him for dinner instead. But Higgins had clearly missed her native soil. She was happier than he had ever seen her, well, other than when she was high on painkillers and discovering jello for the first time. He spotted the look Kumu was giving him and forced a grin. “Sure. No problem. You deserve a break.”

“Oh, why thank you, kind sir,” grinned Juliet in her poshest tones. “Okay, well we have that meeting at the British Museum this evening, so we’d better be getting on. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

“Hey, do they have dinosaurs in there?” Rick asked. “Or mummies? Mummies are cool.”

“Yes to the mummies, no to the dinosaurs,” replied Juliet. “For those we go to the Natural History Museum, where you will be met at the entrance by one of the world’s few complete stegosaurus skeletons.”

“They’re the ones with the spikey tail and weird plates sticking up from their spine,” Rick informed the group on the other end of the call.

“I didn’t know you liked dinosaurs, brother,” laughed TC. “Or mummies, for that matter.”

“Dude! Who doesn’t like dinosaurs?” Rick scoffed. “And did you know that not all Egyptian mummies were actually Egyptian? The practice went on right up to the time of the Roman empire!”

“Look, we’d better get going,” said Juliet, reclaiming the phone from Rick as he disappeared off screen. Her smile followed him for a second, then she looked back round to the camera. “Trains to catch and all that jazz. I’ll call you later. Ta-ra.”

The screen went blank before Magnum or the others could reply. TC laughed and looked at his friend. “Better watch out, brother. Looks like our girl’s happy to be home.”

“This is her home,” muttered Thomas, frowning down at the screen. “And anyway: she has two massive hellhounds who hate me waiting on her.”

“Home is where the heart is,” laughed Kumu. “Don’t worry, Thomas: I’ll protect you from the dogs.”

Magnum laughed a little and put his phone away. “I gotta go update our client on things before I head over to the courthouse. See you guys later.”

Kumu and TC watched their friend leave the house and head off in his Ferrari. When the roar of the car had died away, Kumu looked up to TC, peacefully drying a glass with an amused grin on his face.

“Something you’d like to share, Theodore,” she smiled.

“Hmm?” TC looked up. “Oh, I’m just thinking how my boy made fun of me when he learned I studied art history. Dinosaurs _and_ mummies? There’s gonna be some revenge in store when he gets back!”

“Uh-huh,” Kumu nodded, still smiling. “Do excuse me, Theodore: I believe it’s time I headed to the cultural centre.”

Kumu was barely out of the room when she dialled Juliet’s number, but only as a voice call this time and not on speaker. Juliet sounded slightly less cheerful when she picked up.

“Kumu: is everything alright?”

“Everything’s fine. Are you on speaker?” Kumu asked, keeping the smile in her voice to allay Juliet’s fears.

There was a change in the background noise. “Not any more,” reported Juliet. “Why?”

“Oh, just a question I wanted to ask you,” said Kumu, “Privately, as it were.”

Juliet’s eyes searched the room. Rick wasn’t back yet. “Well, it’s just me here at the moment. What question?”

“You seem happy to be back in London,” observed Kumu. “Very happy, I might say.”

“Well, of course: I haven’t really been back here properly in years. It’s good to see some more of the old haunts, if only for a little while.” The inadvertent pun hit her and Juliet giggled. It was catching.

“Hmm,” Kumu murmured. “Is that the only reason?”

Juliet froze. “What?”

“Just think about it,” suggested Kumu. “That’s all I’m saying.”

“Think about what? What is there to think about?” Juliet sputtered, eyes darting around the room in confusion.

“About why your smile is brighter than I’ve ever seen it. That’s all.”

Juliet could hear the grin in Kumu’s voice as the call ended. She stood for a moment, staring at the phone still clutched in her hand, combing through her memory of the conversation for clues. A door closed behind her.

“Hey, you think we could go see the Tower of London sometime?” Rick asked. “I mean, we don’t want to lose our heads here but…”

Juliet’s bemused frown broke into a smile. “That was a reach,” she laughed. Then her grin froze and she looked away. Oh. Oh, that was what Kumu meant. But that was just Rick, wasn’t it? He was always making jokes. She always laughed at them. There was nothing new there, was there? Was there?

“Everything okay, Jules?” Rick frowned, catching the change in her expression.

“Hmm?” Juliet looked up, pinning her smile back into place. “Oh, nothing, just reminded me of something Kumu said.”

Rick blinked, “I didn’t think Kumu said much of anything in particular?”

“Oh, um, she called while you were away,” Juliet waved a hand dismissively. “About some… estate stuff, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Rick shrugged. “So, we good to go?”

“Yeah,” Juliet nodded. “Yeah, just let me grab my jacket.”

****

Doctor John Farnsworth was a small, rotund man who peered myopically at the photograph Higgins handed him. He studied the details with a hand lens, then handed the image back to her.

“Yes, I remember it,” he sniffed, pushing his glasses back up on his nose. “I was engaged upon other matters, however, and Fraser offered to do it instead.”

“Fraser?” Rick prompted.

“My research assistant, although it is a little more complicated than that.”

“How so?” Higgins frowned.

“Fraser Appleby. He is er… both my assistant and my student,” explained the curator. “He works here both to fund his own studies and gain access to that which he is studying.”

“Which is what, exactly?” Rick asked, glancing over at Higgy, but failing to catch her eye.

“The influence of external cultures upon Egyptian art of the Old Kingdom and predynastic era,” recited Farnsworth, replacing the hand lens in a drawer. “That’s the topic of his PhD. It’s a fascinating time period to study. He’s working on a paper on Mesopotamian influences in the Hierakonpolis cache just now. Very interesting. Are you familiar with the Narmer Palette at all?”

“I’ve come across it,” offered Higgins. “That’s the piece with the intertwining serpopards on the well side, isn’t it?”

“Quite so,” smiled the curator, instantly more attentive. “Have you studied in this field Ms Higgins?”

“Not for a long time,” Higgins smiled apologetically. “So, Mr Appleby dealt with this item? Is he here? Can we speak with him?”

“Ah, no: he left early today,” Farnsworth shook his head. “He has a flat nearby though, I can give you the address. Bear with me a moment.” He opened another desk drawer and retrieved an address book that looked as though it could have been a museum piece itself. “Here we are,” he said, flicking through the pages. “Appleby, Fraser.”

“May I?” Higgins stepped forward, phone at hand. She snapped a photo of the page. “Thank you, Doctor Farnsworth. You’ve been very helpful.”

“You are most welcome, Ms Higgins,” replied Farnsworth with a little bow. “If you speak to Fraser tonight, would you do me the kindness of reminding him we have an early start tomorrow: there is a new item arriving that will require our full attention.”

They left the museum through the central atrium, passing by the modern shop and café on one side and the opening that led to the Egyptian artefacts on the other. Rick’s eyes darted from one isolated display case to another, then fell on the item through the doorway to Ancient Egypt.

“Hey, Higgy: what’s with the massive chunk of rock?”

“What’s that?” Juliet looked round. Her eyes darted to Rick, then looked where he was pointing. “Oh, that. Ever heard of the Rosetta Stone?”

“Isn’t that an app to learn languages?” Rick tried, walking over. “I’m sure TC has it on his cell phone.”

“It is,” Juliet nodded, turning back to the exit and starting to walk again, “but the name comes from that “massive chunk of rock”. That’s the original Rosetta Stone. It has writing on it in hieroglyphs, in Middle Egyptian, which we couldn’t read at the time, but also in Greek, which we could read. That’s what gave us, or, more exactly, Jean-François Champollion, the key to deciphering the hieroglyphs in the first place.”

“Cool,” opined Rick, nodding.

“Really?” Higgy scoffed, glancing over at him then looking away. “Possibly the most important discovery in the entirety of Egyptology, and all it gets is “cool”?”

“Well, it is,” Rick shrugged, hurrying to keep up with her. “Besides, from here, all I can see is a big lump of black rock in a plastic box. I promise I will be more complimentary about it when we come back here once the case is done.”

“Hmm,” hummed Juliet, without looking round to him. All the same, a smile warmed the side of her face. “I’ll hold you to that.”

As they stepped back on to Great Russell Street, Higgins stuck out a hand to hail a cab.

“What? No walk or tube?” Rick asked.

“Welcome to the London cabbie experience,” Juliet grinned as a black cab pulled over for them. “I do not recognise this address. Cabbies know every street in this city, and the quickest way to get there.”

They climbed into the taxi and Higgins showed the driver her phone. “Can you take us to this address please?”

With a nod, the cabbie set off. It wasn’t a long journey, but it did take them into an area of the city unlike those Rick had seen so far. He half listened to the conversation between Higgy and the cab driver, half watched the streets change as the city rolled by. Where they stopped, the streets were noticeably narrower and far less green. The other item that caught his attention was the activity around an open door with a uniformed police officer outside.

“How much do you want to bet that there is the house we’re after,” he murmured, looking over at Higgins.

“Well, I wouldn’t bet against it that’s for sure,” replied Higgy, opening her door. “Come on: let’s go find out.”

It was the door they were looking for, and the flat within it they were looking for. The uniformed officer held them at the doorway and radioed through to the officer in charge. From the way Juliet’s face brightened the moment the detective came into view, Rick guessed the name before he heard it.

“Jane! It’s so good to see you, albeit in horrible circumstances,” Higgy enthused, hugging her friend in a way that seemed to startle the severely suited woman. “How are you? Listen, is your corpse Fraser Appleby, by any chance?”

Jane McManus took a breath and looked Higgy up and down, then scanned Rick in the same way. He couldn’t help but note the way an eyebrow lifted at the end of her scrutiny. “How did you know that? And when did you start hugging people?”

“We think he’s the token expert in our forgery case,” shrugged Higgins, sliding back to calm efficiency and ignoring the hug comment. “If he’s your corpse, I’m guessing that confirms it, and that the forgers are aware we’re investigating and are tying up loose ends. If that’s so, we only have one other individual whom we know is definitely linked to the case and they may be the next target, so: is it him?”

McManus paused, considering her options and her friend. “Yes, it’s him. We got the call this afternoon: that was why I couldn’t meet you as planned. Killed some time around noon, we think.”

“May I ask how?” Higgins enquired with a polite frown.

“Not right now, no,” replied McManus. “Once the coroner is done with him, and if I think it links to your investigation, I will give you what details I can, but until then…”

“Understood,” Higgins nodded. “If you can’t do that, can you perhaps help expedite matters with Sotheby’s? The chap I spoke to promised to investigate but refused to give me the courier’s details. If he’s in danger, we should get to him as soon as possible.”

“You have a number for this chap?” McManus nodded.

Higgins handed over her phone and let her friend dial the number. In a matter of minutes, they were in the back of the detective’s car, speeding towards the address with backup on the way.

The house was in darkness when they arrived.

“I’ll take the back,” whispered Higgins, disappearing off at a nod from McManus and leaving Rick with her.

Silently, they edged towards the door, waiting for Higgins’ signal. Once again, he noticed the detective surveying him.

“Something you want to ask, Detective?” Rick hissed.

“You’re not her usual partner,” observed Jane.

“No, but I help out where needed,” he shot back.

“You hurt her I will hurt you, understand?”

Rick’s head snapped round, eyes wide. “Excuse me?”

“I read people for a living, mate, and you are an open book,” replied McManus. “Jules lets her heart blind her head sometimes. I don’t have that issue here.”

“I am not that obvious!”

“You smile when she smiles, even when she’s not looking at you. You relax when she’s happy, tense up when she’s not. You’re even worse now she’s gone and possibly in danger, even though you’re perfectly used to being in danger yourself. You’re what? Ex-army? Navy? Jules can take care of herself: we don’t rely on shoot-first-ask-questions-later over here. Leastways not as much as you do across the pond.”

“I never shot anyone I didn’t have to,” growled Rick, “and I didn’t shoot to kill if a non-lethal shot would do.”

“Sniper then,” concluded McManus, bobbing her head to the side. “Well, you must be feeling useful right now.”

“Not the word that immediately springs to mind!”

Rick’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it and showed the message to McManus. Higgy was in position. The detective buzzed one of the other flats in the building, held her ID up to the camera, and pushed open the door. The flat they were looking for was on the first floor, or second floor by Rick’s understanding, and he followed the DI up the stairs to a tiled hallway. As they approached the door, Rick glanced downwards. He tapped the detective on the arm and pointed. Dark, viscous liquid was seeping under the door to their suspect’s flat. At a nod from McManus, he booted the door down.

A dark figure cannoned into him and sent the detective sprawling. Rick rolled to his feet and darted after the anonymous attacker. The sight of blue lights flashing through the front door made them turn towards the rear exit, and Higgins. Rick swung round the end of the stairs and followed. The figure wrenched open the back door and met Higgins’ outstretched arm coming in the opposite direction. They staggered back, throwing out a hand to regain their balance, and kicked out, hitting Juliet in the centre of her slight frame, throwing her backwards down the short flight of concrete steps. The attacker ran on. Rick ran to Juliet.

“I’m okay, go on,” she gasped, waving him away.

He followed the figure out through the back yard of the building, caught a glimpse of a shadow departing around a corner at one end of the lane between the houses and ran on. The culprit wasn’t that far ahead. He could catch them. He swerved left at the end of the lane into an alleyway that led out onto a well-lit city street, hearing running footsteps behind him and knowing it was Juliet. There was the shadow, backlit against the glow of the streetlights. He ran on.

****

Juliet felt the air knocked out of her as she landed hard on the packed earth of the back yard. In seconds, Rick was there, hands steadying her, asking her if she was alright. She nodded, sending him onward, then dragged herself to her feet. A few deep breaths helped, but the pain would have to wait until later. She took off after Rick and their suspect, exiting the yard just in time to see Rick heading down the right side of the lane and turning left at the end. If they could just catch this one miscreant, maybe the whole thing would unravel.

She wheeled round to the left at the end of the lane and saw Rick at the end of the alley. He nearly had their suspect. For a second, the light of the streetlamps bounced off the un-English bright colours of his shirt, then he was gone, a bus hurtling across the end of the alley.

Juliet staggered to a halt. No. No, that did not just happen! That couldn’t have just happened. The bus vanished on its merry way, and there he was. Standing in the middle of the road, traffic on either side of him. Suddenly it felt like she was encased in resin. Her feet refused to move. Her lungs refused to operate. She wasn’t even sure she could feel her heart beating.

Rick turned, holding up apologetic, placating hands to the vehicles that paused to let him return to the safety of the pavement, on Juliet’s side. She felt the air leave her lungs like tourists leaving the water when a shark was spotted. She tried to drag it back, but each breath seemed to leave her lungs faster than she could pull it in. By the time he got back to her she was shaking, backed up against the wall with her hands cupped over her mouth and nose in an effort to reset her breathing.

“I lost ‘em, sorry,” he murmured, frowning. “You okay?”

Juliet’s hands flew from her mouth to his chest, pushing him away so hard he staggered backwards a pace. “Am I okay?” She pushed him again. “Am I okay?! I just watched you die, you idiot!”

Rick blinked. “You… what? Higgy!”

“Are you not even slightly aware of what went on behind you a moment ago?” Juliet yelled, pushing at Rick again, but finding him harder to move now. She wheeled away, a hand over her mouth, holding in the gut wrenching sobs that threatened to reveal any secrets she had left.

“Tell me,” he said.

Juliet shook her head, unwilling to trust her voice just quite yet. She walked off, heading back to the flat. Behind her she heard Rick’s footsteps following.

Jane took one look at her when she returned and glared daggers over Juliet’s shoulder at Rick. Juliet closed her eyes and took a breath. One thing at a time. Priorities. Right now, they had a crime scene to investigate, if they could.

****

Rick watched McManus wave them forward and hold out a pair of gloves to Juliet. When he reached her, all he got from the detective was a narrow-eyed glare.

“Somehow I don’t think mine would fit you,” she offered in explanation. “Maybe you’d better stay here for now.”

When the door closed behind the two women and various others of the police force, Rick thought back to the moments before Juliet’s sudden attack. He had felt the rush of air behind him, but it was the car hurtling past, in the opposite direction from that he had expected, right in front of him that had taken up all his attention in that moment. Then he had searched the street for any sign of their assassin but found none. Lastly, horns blaring all around him, he had turned and jogged back to the sidewalk and Juliet. Juliet, who was the epitome of the British “stiff-upper-lip”. Juliet, who was unflappable in any emergency. Juliet, whom he could swear he had just watched have a panic attack. Juliet, whose friend seemed to be able to read him far easier than he would ever have wished. He hoped she could do the same for Juliet. Either way, he was stuck here, back on guard duty, until they were done.

****

Juliet opened the door to her flat and dropped her bag on the table by the coatrack with a sigh. She closed her eyes and breathed in a slow, steadying breath. Her outburst had taken her as much by surprise as it undoubtedly had him. Balance. Balance was key. Balance and control. They had two murders to investigate now, whether Jane wanted them involved or not: they couldn’t afford to get side-tracked by some weird mixed-up bag of emotions she had unearthed. It was being back here. It had to be. She knew she should have booked them into a hotel, but it was the peak of the holiday season and prices were at a premium, which meant anywhere even slightly reasonable would be booked up. Besides, they had more space here, and more privacy, to discuss the case, of course, and they didn’t have to worry about keeping odd hours. And, of course, the hundred other reasons that were all excuses for the fact she was keeping at arm’s length and refusing to acknowledge: the fact that she needed to face this particular part of her past, and she didn’t want to do so alone.

The door clicked closed behind her so softly she knew he had to be watching her, probably like she was about to burst into flames at the slightest provocation. She had told him the outline of what she had seen during the lift back: Jane had insisted on having someone drive them. That was all, though. She focussed on her breathing. Control one thing – just one – and maybe she could keep things from falling apart.

“Do you want to talk about what happened back there?” Rick murmured.

Juliet shook her head slightly. “Do we have to?”

There was a pause. “Not if you don’t want to.”

She nodded, reaching for the lifeline. “Thank you. I would rather not. Not right now, anyway.”

“Okay.”

Juliet heard him move away from the door, and for a moment she was sure he was just going to head past her up the hall. When she felt a hand on her shoulder instead, as lightly as if she were made of eggshells, she felt the tears threaten that tiny point of balance, of control, that she was clinging to.

“Hey,” said Rick quietly. “Need a hug? ‘Cause I think, maybe, I do.”

Not a lifeline. A life raft. She turned and fell into the hug. Hugs had never been her thing. Not with friends and acquaintances. Not even family really. Magnum and his friends had changed that. So had Kumu. They were all big huggers. She tried to focus on that: on all her chosen family in Hawaii. They were all good at hugs, really, but she couldn’t stop the thought escaping that at least, if she needed a hug, she’d brought the best of them with her.

There’s a point in every hug where things change, and it’s different every time. When it happens, things either become uncomfortable and the hug ends (Juliet estimated this was around the two second mark for most of her family), or things get too comfortable and you hope and pray it hasn’t gone the other way for the other person. That’s when you have to choose your next move carefully. Juliet chose first. She couldn’t get swept up in this. Her emotions were a mess. Feeling her friend here, alive, and hearing his heart beating, was calming her frayed nerves, but that was all he was: a friend. Warm, caring, and utterly loyal to those he loved. Anything else she was feeling was just this place, messing with her head. It had to be. If it wasn’t and he didn’t feel the same…

Reluctantly, she pulled away from him. She didn’t dare look up. “Um, I should go call Kumu: I said I would check in with her about a few estate matters. Would you… um… would you update Magnum. He’ll want to know about the… um… deaths.”

“Yeah, no problem,” murmured Rick. “You okay?”

“Mhm,” she nodded. She was sure she could feel his eyes on her as she walked away but she didn’t dare risk looking back. There was no telling what he might read in her face if she did.

She closed the door of her bedroom and leant back against it, focussing on her breathing. When she was at least moderately sure her voice had stopped shaking, she pushed herself off the door, pulled out her phone and called Kumu’s number.

“Juliet, how did the museum thing go?” Kumu’s smiling voice rang out into Juliet’s ear as she reached the window at the farthest corner of the room.

“Well, I think we found our expert, but unfortunately both he and the courier are now dead, so I don’t think we’ll be getting much information out of them!”

“What happened?” Kumu asked, her voice suddenly shifting to a much more serious tone.

“Well, we think the forgery gang…”

“I’m not talking about the bad guys, Juliet,” cut in Kumu. “What happened?

That was what did it. That was the point where Juliet’s control crumbled. She put her back to the wall and slid down to the floor. When the sobs and gasped breaths finally subsided, Kumu was still there, saying soothing words and waiting patiently.

Juliet pushed the treacherous tears away from her eyes and took a breath. She heard her voice shake as she spoke. “How did you know?”

“That something happened tonight?” Kumu nudged.

Juliet took another breath. The moment she said it, it was real. Did it stop it being real if she never said it? “That I think I might be falling in love with Rick.”

“Oh, sweetheart, you fell for that boy a while ago,” replied Kumu, a smile creeping back into her voice. “Things have just kept getting in the way, that’s all.”

****

Rick closed the door of his room behind him and leant back against it, deep in thought. He shouldn’t have hugged her. But how could he not? She was hurting and it was his fault. If he hadn’t ran out into the road like an idiot, or at least if he’d remembered roads were the other way round here. Even little kids remembered to look both ways before crossing: why couldn’t he? Now she couldn’t even look at him! He pushed himself off the door with maybe a little more force than was strictly necessary and dragged the cellphone out of his pocket. He said he would call, so he did.

“Hey, Thomas,” he snapped, as soon as the call connected.

“You okay, Rick?” Magnum half-laughed down the line.

Rick bit his cheek and checked his tone. “Yeah, yeah, jet lag must be catching up with me.”

“Right, London starting to lose its charms?”

“Well, let’s just say its traffic is,” he quipped. “I nearly got flattened by one of their famous big red busses chasing our killer.”

“Wait, what now?”

“Courier’s dead. We got there not long after and surprised the guy.”

“Did we get anything from crime scene?”

Rick sucked his teeth at the “we”, but Magnum was the guy in charge after all, and he would have been here if he could. Still, he was glad his friend couldn’t see his face. He shook his head, then remembered the fact Thomas couldn’t see that either. “Nothing much, not yet,” he said aloud. “Juliet’s friend has the case though, so at least we should hear if anything does turn up.”

“How’d the interview go?” Thomas asked, moving the sitrep onwards. “D’you think your museum guy has anything to do with it?”

“No, he’s in the clear. His research assistant, however, some kid trying to scrape together a doctorate, him not so much.”

“You talk to him yet?”

“Not without a psychic.”

“What!” Magnum dragged out the word with a laugh. “Five hours ago, this was just forgery: now it’s a double homicide!”

“Technically, Thomas,” Rick corrected in his sweetest tones, “five hours ago, it was forgery and a single homicide, we just didn’t know it yet.”

Magnum laughed again. “Yeah, you two did seem to be having a lot of fun this morning, evening, whatever.”

Rick’s brows flicked downwards. “That a problem, brother?”

The hesitation on the line was palpable. The grin seemed to have faded from Magnum’s voice when he replied, but not by much. “No? Why would it be?”

Rick’s jaw tightened. What he hid behind laughter, Thomas hid behind the veneer of unshakeable confidence, but the man had blind spots when it came to people he cared about. Huge blind spots. Which was it this time?

“Rick?” Magnum prompted.

“Sorry,” he apologised. “Guess I’m still a little shaken.”

“Where is Higgy, anyway?”

“Going over some estate stuff with Kumu. Hey, Thomas?”

“Yeah?”

“She’s a little shaken too,” he warned. “Jules was still in the alley. She just saw the bus go past. Didn’t realise I was already on the other side of it.”

Instantly, Magnum’s voice became more concerned. “She okay?”

“Like I said,” shrugged Rick, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “She’s a bit shaken up. We both are. Look, Thomas, I’m asleep on my feet, man. We’ll let you know what we hear from Juliet’s friend.”

“This friend of Higgy’s got a name?” Somehow Rick was sure he could hear an edge creep back into Thomas’ voice.

“Yeah,” he replied, “Yeah. McManus. DI Jane McManus. She seems alright.”

“If Higgins trusts her, I’m sure we can,” said Magnum. “Okay, sleep well.”

“I’m sure I will,” yawned Rick. “I’ll tell Jules you said hi in the morning.”

“Mahalo, Rick.”

“Nigh…” Rick realised the call had ended. He replayed the last few seconds in his head. Was it his sleep deprived brain imagining things, or had Thomas seemed a little terse? Well, so had he at the start of the call. Thomas had other things on his mind too. Maybe he’d been called away. Plugging the cell into its charger, he kicked off his shoes, threw himself on the bed and was instantly asleep.

****

Juliet couldn’t sleep. She was tired, utterly exhausted, in fact, but the scenes of the day resurged in her mind every time she closed her eyes. The laughter. The crowds milling around them. The ridiculous puns. The ridiculously adorable way his face lit up whenever they came across the site of another ghost story, or some clichéd tourist attraction. The way he looked at her the first time she took his hand. And the second time.

The way the side of the bus filled the end of the alley.

The way her heart stopped until she saw him again, safe on the far side of it.

The way her lungs refused to function properly until he was back on the pavement, out of harm’s way.

Juliet sat up and glanced at the clock on her phone. It was heading for three in the morning. She threw the covers back with a sigh and got up. She needed something to distract her. Anything to distract her! She edged the door open and headed for the kitchen. The previous contents may have been disposed of, but it could still do with a scrub. She was halfway through the second shelf when the kitchen light flicked on, making her jump.

“Higgy, what are you doing?”

“Cleaning the fridge, what does it look like?” Juliet retorted, focussing on the task at hand. “Sorry: I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Juliet,” Rick sighed, “Why are you cleaning the fridge in the middle of the night?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she answered, perfectly honestly. “I thought this might help.”

She felt a warm hand settle on her arm, stilling her. “Will it?”

“It helps for now,” she admitted. “It’s better than seeing that bloody bus every time I close my eyes.”

Rick turned her to face him. “Look at me, okay, Jules? Look at me. I’m here. I’m okay.”

He was still in the clothes of the day, his hair was awry, his eyes weary. Juliet reached out, resting a hand over his heart. There was something comforting in feeling it beat, like it proved he was really there, alive, watching her, waiting to see what she would do next. She slid her arms around him and held him close. Maybe, if she could fill her mind with this, it would banish the memory of the bus. “You nearly weren’t.”

When Rick gently wrapped his arms around her, Juliet felt like she was one of those hideous porcelain dolls they had found that Halloween. It wasn’t the kind of hug she was used to, not from him, but it worked. Her eyes closed. It was impossible to imagine him dead while he was here, holding her. She felt him move to press a kiss to the side of her head. In return, she reached up to kiss his cheek and was startled when his lips met hers instead. It was just for the tiniest fraction of a second, but he didn’t pull away. Not totally. She knew she wasn’t thinking straight. She knew any semblance of logical thought had flown out the window in that accidental miscalculation. But they were both there, both frozen, like they were hanging on the edge of a precipice, wondering who would be the first to let go.

The second time their lips met, the kiss was slow, tentative, soft, and definitely not an accident. Juliet felt a shiver run through her. Not like this. If they were going to go down this road, it couldn’t be like this. She forced herself to step away from him. “Mmm, sorry: I shouldn’t have…”

Rick cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair. “No, my fault. I… um… got a little caught up in…”

“We’re both tired,” she rationalised, focussing on the far side of the kitchen. “It’s been a day and then some…”

“Yeah… yeah,” muttered Rick. “I should… I’m gonna go…”

“Yes, me too,” she nodded. “I’ll just clear up in here first.”

Juliet kept her eyes on the opposite wall until she heard his door close, then breathed out a long, shaky breath and turned to the contents of the fridge. As she replaced the evicted items, a wry smile crossed her face. In a way, her strategy of distraction had worked: it definitely wouldn’t be the image of the bus stuck in her mind now.


	3. Opportunity

There were two bay windows in the main room of Juliet’s flat, one in the living room side, the other in the dining room side. She stood in the corner of the latter, at the edge nearest the piano, gazing out at the patch of the high street visible to her at the end of Warwick Road. Her hands were wrapped around a mug of coffee that had long since gone cold untasted. She shouldn’t have kissed him. She should have backed off, apologised immediately, and left it at that. It wasn’t just the scenes from the night before that were playing on her mind now, but all the ways things could have gone if she’d acted otherwise. _All_ the ways! If that wasn’t distracting enough, the moments she had managed to steer her mind away from last night and on to this morning, any sensible thoughts of how to proceed with their increasingly important case now seemed plagued with questions over what to say, how to act, how long was too long to laugh at your colleague’s jokes or smile at their smile.

“Whatcha smiling at, Jules?”

The treacherous smile vanished into thin air and Juliet did her best to rush together a look of polite enquiry as she turned. “Hmm?”

Rick paused, closed his eyes and winced. “Okay, maybe don’t answer that.”

Juliet took the opportunity to school her features into something passably professional and turned back to the window. “I was just admiring the view and the lovely morning.”

He joined her at the window, leaning against the opposite end of the bay, right on the edge of her peripheral vision. “Mhm. Any word on the case?”

Juliet took a sip of her coffee, realised it was stone cold, and pulled a face. “I spoke to Jane earlier. Our dark clad stranger was almost certainly the killer. Time of death was basically when we got there. Didn’t you wonder why she didn’t come after you? Her first duty was to try and save the guy.”

“I figured she stayed to preserve the scene,” Rick replied, mentally kicking himself for not realising that. “You and I were both ahead of her and backup hadn’t arrived yet.”

“She’s a Metropolitan police officer and we’re effectively tourists!” Higgins countered, risking a look towards him. He was watching the world out the window as she had been. “Besides, Jane might know me, but she’s only met you once: she doesn’t know you from Adam!”

Rick bobbed his head to one side in acknowledgement of this. “I don’t know Jul… Higgy, I think she has a fairly good idea of some things.”

“Oh, did she do the Sherlock Holmes thing?” Juliet smiled, trying to banish the frown that had intruded on her features. It was the first time she had ever hated being called Higgy since the nickname began. “Don’t let it fool you: she’s heard plenty about you, about all of you, from me over the years.”

“Not this thing,” Rick muttered into his coffee.

“What was that?” Juliet frowned, looking over again. Her eyes began to drift. She turned back to the window and sipped her cold coffee.

****

Rick looked over at Juliet. Higgy. Higgins. He was definitely getting too close. If nothing else, last night proved that. He should know better. Getting romantically involved with friends or work colleagues was never a good idea, and right now Higgy… Higgins was both. He turned back to the window and swallowed down a gulp of the hot coffee in an effort to get his thoughts back on track. The silence dragged on. He hated silence. Quiet didn’t bother him. Quiet was just silence that was alive, filled with the sounds of the world just rolling along, doing its thing. Noise varied. Music was best. Music and voices. Happy voices. Other noises were less… less peaceful. Silence though… Silence filled his nightmares. Silence was emptiness. Silence was everyone he ever loved dead. Gone. He _hated_ silence.

“What’s our next move, here?” Rick asked, staring into the depths of his empty mug as if wishing could refill it for him.

There was a flutter of movement in the corner of his eye, but he didn’t dare look round. “Jane said she would call when she got more news. I was going to see what I could find on our corpses.”

Rick nodded. Great. Treading water in an apartment in a city he didn’t know with a friend he was growing more certain by the moment he had forever distanced from him. It was clear this place held memories for her. Happy memories if her face when he walked in was anything to go by. Memories he had possibly tarnished by kissing her last night. He should have known better. She was clearly still shaken by the incident earlier that evening. Rick didn’t like the idea that he had taken advantage of that. That wasn’t the kind of person he wanted to be. An apology was in order – a decent one – but he dreaded the distance he might put between them if the subject was raised again.

“Rick?” Higgins’ voice cut through the cobwebs of his thoughts.

“Huh? Sorry, what?” Rick shook his head and looked up, blinking, at the window.

The coffee mug was removed from his hands and set down on a table somewhere nearby. “Rick… Damn it, Orville, look at me when I’m trying to apologise to you!”

This was sufficiently disconcerting to make him look round with a puzzled frown. “What?”

Juliet… Higgins was back at the far side of the bay window but facing him now. The look on her face was not one he could recall ever seeing before. Rick turned, leaning back against the edge of the bay and folding his arms across his chest, matching her.

“I wanted to apologise,” began Higgins, but got no further.

“For what? You have nothing to apologise for: I do!”

“Don’t be ridiculous: I kissed you, not the other way round!”

“No, I kissed you: I should be the one apologising!”

“I kissed you on the lips, you just kissed my head.”

“That was an accident: we both know that. I shouldn’t have kissed you back after. You weren’t yourself and I took advantage. I’m sorry.”

“Wait, what?” Higgins stepped forward.

“I said I’m sorry.” Rick frowned down at the floor.

“You said “after”,” she pointed out. “I was already talking about “after”.”

Rick’s eyes shifted to a point of floor further away, then back up to Higgy’s. “I thought I moved first.”

“I thought I did,” said Higgy, watching him carefully.

“Okay,” said Rick, drawing out the word like the wire he felt he was walking, “so we kissed each other. That’s not awkward!”

“No, I’m sure it must happen all the time, in such circumstances,” reasoned Higgy, her eyes darting sidewards.

“Sure, yeah, course it must,” blustered Rick, running a hand through his hair. “I mean: what’s one little, emotionally charged, midnight kiss between friends, right? It’s not like it went beyond that. It was just one little kiss, short and sweet. That’s all, right?”

Higgy was looking at him oddly now and he couldn’t blame her. She stepped a little closer with a smile. “Very short,” she agreed, “but very sweet.”

And he knew. Right there and then, he knew he was gone.

Juliet’s phone rang and he watched a flicker of annoyance flit over her face before answering.

“Jane, we’re both here, what is it?”

****

An Uber was the quickest and easiest option for getting to Scotland Yard, but Juliet wondered if she’d made the right choice. Rick had gone quiet on her. Rick quiet was never a good sign. Had she said the wrong thing, right before Jane called? He’d been so flustered, which was apparently another facet of Rick to add to her growing mental list under the heading “Adorable”. Last night hadn’t made it onto that list. Last night had ended up on a very different mental list that had a title she wasn’t even sure she was quite ready to admit to herself. There wasn’t much on that list yet. It was the “yet” that worried her. She looked over at him, on the far side of the back seat, staring out the car window apparently deep in thought. Maybe she had said the wrong thing. Maybe he had just got lost in the moment. Maybe one mixed up kiss was all they were ever going to be.

“Are we okay?” Juliet asked, studying as much of his face as she could see.

There was a flicker of movement in his half-hidden features, but Juliet couldn’t see enough of him to read him. Not right now.

“Yeah, we’re okay,” he replied, sitting back and looking at the road ahead. His eyes dropped and closed for a moment, then he finally looked round to her. “Yeah. Course we’re okay, Higgy.” He shrugged and dredged up a laugh from somewhere. “We crossed a line last night. Doesn’t mean we can’t uncross it now. It’s fine. We’re fine.”

Juliet dragged a reluctant smile onto her face. As he looked away again, another matter resurfaced in her memory: one that had been buried under the weight of everything else.

“Actually, there’s another thing I have to apologise to you for,” she said, forcing the words out before they could be buried again.

“Oh, what’s that?” Rick asked, looking round, mask back in place. “We miss a ghost story or two?”

The smile that flitted across her face this time was far more genuine than the one before, she knew. This was the friend she had missed all morning, back. At least, he was trying to be. If he could try, so could she.

“Last night,” Juliet continued, swallowing when his expression froze momentarily. “Earlier, last night, when you nearly…”

“Got flattened by a bus?” Rick suggested, watching her.

“I called you an idiot,” she said, carefully keeping her voice level. “I shouldn’t have. I don’t think that of you. I’m sorry.”

Rick looked away and nodded thoughtfully. “Well, you’re not the first and you probably won’t be the last, so I wouldn’t worry about it, Higgy.”

Juliet opened her mouth to say something, but words seemed to vanish on her tongue. She felt a sigh of relief leave her when Westminster Bridge came into view. Jane met them in the foyer.

“Let’s walk and talk,” she ordered, steering them back out of the building.

“What’s going on, Jane?” Higgins asked, following her friend out to the embankment.

“I found this in my desk phone,” said the DI, handing her an evidence bag.

Higgins looked down at the small clump of circuitry, pausing by the riverside.

“Is that what I think it is,” asked Rick, sounding more his usual self than he had all morning she noted.

“Yes,” she confirmed, looking back up to Jane. “So that’s how they knew we were on to them.”

“The building is being swept for more as we speak,” nodded her friend. “I need to know where you were yesterday when you discussed the case with my colleague and what was said there. If there were listening devices in the room…”

Higgins described the route they had taken to the conference room. “DS Norton was pretty much aware of the particulars already, though.”

“Norton?” McManus frowned.

“Not the guy you sent to meet us?” Rick suggested.

The detective shook her head. “Though his DI was,” she shrugged. “He could have just passed the details on to Norton. What exactly did he say?”

The trio started walking again, Higgins staring at the path before her in thought. “There was one phrase he used that matched our chat word for word: he said that my partner and I “discovered the forgery through a related case”. Did you say that to his DI?”

McManus shook her head. “It’s a common enough turn of phrase though, in itself.”

“Word for word?” Rick asked, from the detective’s other side.

Again, the group stopped. This time it was for McManus to pull out her mobile and make a call.

“It’s Norton,” she said. “Get him.” Jane looked up. “We’ll take it from here, for now. Go take your partner round Westminster: there’s tours this time of year again.”

Juliet’s mouth opened then closed. She glared at her friend through narrowed eyes. Jane pulled an innocent face at her.

“What was that about?” Rick asked, watching McManus hurry back to the building.

“We’re being sidelined,” huffed Higgins.

“Oh, no, that was obvious,” he scoffed. “I mean that little telepathy act you two got going on there.”

Higgins waved a hand as if swatting a stray idea out of the air. “Oh, that: Jane and I shared a flat for years in university and a dorm in school for years before that. She knew I wouldn’t like being kept out of the loop. That’s why she got us out of the building first.”

“Uh-huh,” he nodded. “And what do you want to do about that?”

“Not much we can do,” shrugged Higgins. She started walking back to the bridge and waited for Rick to fall into step beside her. “But at least the palace is nearby if she changes her mind.”

“Palace?” Rick queried, looking confused.

“Of Westminster,” said Juliet, nodding at the building across the road they had reached. “It also happens to be our seat of government; you may have heard of it.”

Rick smiled at the teasing. “Well, we can’t leave that off the tour list, can we?”

****

The Houses of Parliament weren’t exactly top of Rick’s list of places he wanted to visit in London, but he had to admit the building was impressive. It wasn’t just big and fancy: it was a maze! There seemed to be open areas where there shouldn’t be and rooms inside that he could have sworn were not there from the outside. The visit to the Robing Room was a point of particular interest. He wasn’t sure why anyone would want to put gold on pretty much everything, including the ceiling, but if it was to make an impression, it worked! Midas could have pinballed through there without making a difference! He was standing in front of one of the frescoes when Higgy stepped up beside him, her cell in her hand.

“That was Jane. Norton’s in the wind.” She tipped her head back and read the name of the painting. “The Admission of Sir Tristram to the Fellowship of the Round Table. You know the artist pretty much took over this room for years when he was painting these. Even had his mail sent here!”

“I’m tryin’ to work out which one Thomas is named after,” muttered Rick. “He was one of these round table guys, wasn’t he?”

“I don’t recall a Sir Thomas of the Round Table,” smirked Higgy. She glanced round long enough to see him smile back, then remembered to look away. “There are many White Knights scattered through numerous Arthurian stories, but I do believe Robin was thinking of Lancelot, who was known as such because of his white shield and armour. He’s the one on the white charger at the side there.” She cleared her throat. “You know I’ve always thought Thomas was more like Arthur. Always the one in charge, or thinks he is. Travels around the island, dragging his friends into his adventures, most of which are to help people who need helping and have nowhere else to run. It’s Thomas to a T. Lancelot is one of his best knights and one of his best friends. He had his own adventures, but a lot of the time he just followed his king. He wasn’t perfect though, as some people think him. That’s why in Malory’s version, it’s Galahad, Lancelot’s son, who completes the quest for the holy grail, not Lancelot himself.”

“What’d he do? Forget his buddy’s birthday?” Rick joked, looking back to the painting.

Higgy paused before answering, as if looking for the right words. “He fell in love with Guinevere,” she replied softly. “ _Queen_ Guinevere. And she fell in love with him.”

Rick kept his eyes on the artwork. Was she trying to tell him something or had she just not spotted the parallels until she said it. “What happened?”

“Let’s just say everyone’s life would have been better if they’d met _before_ she married Arthur!” Higgy trilled. “Oh, look: the tour’s moving on.”

They followed the group, somehow always managing to get separated by other tourists at every pause. When they finally reached the exit, Higgy was over the far side of the small crowd. There was nothing to do but follow the flow of people out onto Abingdon Street. Over the heads of the group, he caught her eye and saw her wave and nod at the far side of the road. There was a patch of green there, and fewer people. There was also a crossing. He made it to the other side without any intervening busses this time.

“Hey, Higgy, what was that back there?” Rick blurted out, before he could change his mind.

“What was what?” Higgins replied, feigning innocence he didn’t buy for a second. “I mean it was a long tour, you might have to be a little more specific.”

“Don’t do that,” snapped Rick, kicking himself as soon as he heard the words come out of his mouth and saw the way she froze. “Don’t hide behind the sarcasm. Not right now.”

“You’re one to talk!” Higgins shot back. “You’ve barely said a word all morning!”

“Because I don’t know what _to_ say!” Rick shrugged. “I don’t know what you _want_ me to say!”

“I don’t know: whatever you’re thinking,” Juliet shrugged back at him.

“You first!”

Juliet threw her hands up and cast her eyes about, as if searching for a safe place to look. Suddenly, she froze, staring past Rick

“That’s Norton,” Higgins stated. Her hand brushed Rick’s sleeve as she hastened past him. “Come on.”

“Not the words I was hoping for,” he muttered to himself, and headed after her.

****

An hour later saw Rick and Juliet back on the embankment, leaving Scotland Yard. Norton was in custody, as was the _dis_ honourable member of parliament he had been colluding with. Juliet headed for the waterside and felt Rick catch her arm and hold her back.

“Come sit with me a minute,” he murmured, drawing her over to one of the nearby benches.

“I thought maybe we could take a river boat down to Cadogan Pier at the Albert Bridge, then walk up through Chelsea to the Natural History Museum,” said Juliet, not meeting his eyes. “There’s a river bus or, at this time of year, a river tour that heads that way from here.”

“Higgy.”

Juliet sighed and looked down at her hands. “I don’t want to mess this up, Rick,” she murmured.

“Then you gotta tell me what’s going on in there,” Rick insisted. “I’m no good at these kinds of guessing games: I’ve guessed wrong too many times before.”

“You are one of my best friends,” she continued, choosing each word like a stepping-stone in a stream. “You are one of the most important people in my life right now and I don’t want… I can’t lose you.”

Rick sighed and sat back. “Yeah, I know what that feels like.”

“I feel like yesterday, before the bus incident, we were just ourselves and having fun just being here, together, and now I’ve gone and ruined that.” She paused for breath, turning on the bench to watch him. “But there is a really big part of me that does not regret kissing you last night.”

The afternoon dragged on. Juliet was sure she couldn’t remember holding her breath, but her lungs were burning by the time he spoke.

“So, what do you want to do about that, Jules?”

This was the difficult bit. “I’m still working on that,” she admitted. “See there’s this other part of me that is… Terrified. I fell for a friend before and he was my world. He was everything to me. And when he died… When he died, I lost myself, for a long time. And now I feel like I’ve finally put the pieces back together, enough that I even came back here, back to the home I planned to build with him. The idea of going through that again: it utterly terrifies me! And last night when I thought you... Thieves and assassins I can handle, but the thought of letting myself fall in love like that again scares me so much I feel frozen in place. Like I’m too afraid to move forwards, but I can’t bring myself to step back.” She watched a series of unreadable expressions cross his face. “What?”

Rick shook his head. “It’s none of my business.”

“Maybe not, but ask me anyway,” she pushed.

“You didn’t…” Rick frowned down at his feet. “Okay, I know you didn’t start out friends, but Doctor Ethan?”

“There was that safety net, it’s true,” she admitted, “but also, that didn’t start from the same place this is.”

Rick nodded, chewing his lip.

“What do _you_ want to do about… this?” Juliet ventured, watching him.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he replied, looking round. “Not until… unless I’m told otherwise. I’m still your friend. I’ll always be that.”

“But that’s all?” Juliet frowned, feeling like she had a lead weight in her stomach.

“I didn’t say that,” he corrected her. “I just. I have my own issues holding me back, and I’m pretty sure you know what most of them are already. I don’t regret kissing you, but I do regret the timing. That was never how I wanted to start anything with you.”

Juliet tipped her head to one side, picking one stray word out of the carefully constructed sentences. “Never?” She watched him gape as if he could take the slip back, then wince and look away. “How long? Rick?”

He winced again and shook his head, but, like so much else over the past couple of days, the genie could not be put back in the bottle. “Long enough.”

Juliet let her mind flit back through the emotional minefield of yesterday. How hadn’t she seen that? She turned and sat back in the bench. “Okay. Okay, so where, exactly, does that leave us?”

The sounds of the city settled around them before he answered her. “There are lines, at least for me, that separate friends, close friends and lovers. Some of them we cross without thinking, and that’s fine: we’re close. Ohana. Others we crossed yesterday and maybe… maybe we need to uncross some of them for now. I don’t know: I’m not sure I want to. Then there’s the lines we can’t uncross, and we’re getting closer to them here, for whatever reason. If we’re gonna go there… Jules, I need you to be sure. Because if you change your mind…”

Juliet nodded. “Understood.” She let the dust settle again. “So, now that’s somewhat dubiously settled…”

“Thought you were gonna show me that stone,” laughed Rick.

Juliet’s shoulders dropped as she let out a breath. He was back. “Walk or silent tube of doom?”

“If we walk, we can stop for food on the way.”

“Walk it is,” she stood up, then stopped herself automatically reaching for his arm. Was that one of the lines she’d crossed without thinking? Was it one that needed to be uncrossed? Suddenly clarity didn’t seem so clear. “You do realise you won’t make it round the whole museum in one afternoon. Also, tomorrow’s Sunday and I have no idea what’s open on Sundays here any more.”

Rick didn’t miss a beat. “Really? What a shame. Guess we’ll just have to tell Tommy we’re staying a few more days.”

****

They had strolled through the city, not arm in arm, but side by side, telling stories of ghosts and bygone days. The queue to get into the museum had been long, but fast moving. Now they were standing below the head of Ramses the great watching a crowd of kids pile around the Rosetta Stone in its protective case. It had been the same since they had arrived and they had explored the rest of the hall while waiting for the crowd to thin. It hadn’t. Now it was heading for closing time. Rick felt Juliet pluck at his sleeve.

“Come with me,” she called over the din.

Curious, he followed her across the central atrium into what appeared to be a library. It was considerably quieter than the previous hall. An elderly couple were strolling through, arm in arm, on their way out. Rick watched them go, then looked round to Juliet. She was waiting a few steps away.

Rick walked over to her, scanning the walls as he went. “Why are we here?”

One side of her mouth curled in the shy half smile he always saw when she was trying not to smile and failing miserably. “Turn around,” she shrugged.

Rick did as he was told, throwing her a mock-suspicious look. He was only half-way round when he saw it. “Oh wow! What?”

“It’s only a replica, not the original,” Juliet pointed out, following him over to the replica stone.

“Why’s it tucked away in here?” Rick asked, watching her light up a little more at the chance to talk about something she clearly loved.

“This was it’s original home, well, in Britain anyway,” she grinned, and he couldn’t help grinning back like an idiot, “Champollion may have decoded the hieroglyphs thanks to this stone, but he wasn’t the only one trying. On the British side of the channel, where the stone was kept, other minds were trying to do the same, and they did so right here, where we’re standing.”

“Wow! That’s awesome,” he breathed, meaning every word. “D’you think they knew?”

“Knew what?” Juliet asked, looking round.

She was still smiling, and for a moment he lost focus. “Um…” he shook his head. “Knew that a hundred or whatever years later there’d be people queueing up to see that same old piece of rock, walking through here, learning about a culture that pretty much died out two thousand years ago, and standing where they stood, remembering the work they did and understanding the world so much better because they stood here all that time ago and tried to work it out.”

“They were scientists,” laughed Juliet. “Logicians. I’d say it crossed their minds.”

They leant over the replica stone, Juliet pointing out the three scripts and languages that had unlocked the past so many years ago. She trailed her delicate fingers down the lines of lettering pointing out key words and phrases that had stood out to the researchers. When she reached the bottom of the slab, she let her hand fall, brushing past Rick’s on the way. He noted the way her smile faded and she flinched away from him in that moment. This would not do, he thought. Not at all.

“Hey, just out of curiosity,” he began, glancing around the hall to see not a soul in sight, “why did you just do that?”

“What?” Juliet asked, more at his asking it than at the question itself.

“Just now, when your hand touched mine, you moved away,” he clarified. “Did you do that because you wanted to or because you thought _I_ wanted you to?”

Juliet shook her head, searching for words. “The latter, I think. Why?”

Rick nodded, chewing his lip in thought. “Okay. Okay, I have a proposal, an idea,” he corrected quickly. “an idea. Juliet Higgins, would you please do me the honour of allowing me to take you to dinner.”

Juliet looked at him askance, studying him almost as much as she had the stone. “Rick Wright are you asking me out… on a date?”

He let his eyes lock with hers. No turning back now. “Yeah. What d’you think?”

“Why now? I thought…”

“I don’t want us to go backward,” he said, watching her as if she might vanish the moment he looked away. “And if there’s any chance I can tip the balance in my favour here… Besides,” he shrugged. “We’ve all been on first dates, right? It’s… clearer, maybe?”

Juliet looked down at her hands, smiling.

“Are you blushing?” Rick asked, more than a little of his grin creeping into his voice.

Juliet bit her lip and looked up. Right up, at the ceiling in fact. She laughed. “Why do we sound so much worse at this than those teenagers through there?”

“Because we know what we’re risking,” he murmured, watching her eyes lock on to his again, “and we know it’s worth the risk.”

****

Dinner was nice. They hadn’t bothered with fancy clothes and posh restaurants: that would have involved going back to the flat to change and possibly hunting round for reservations. Instead, they had walked, arm in arm, to a little plaza of eateries on Bucknall Street and found a table out in the warm summer breeze. The food had been good, the company better. For a while Juliet had even forgotten this was supposed to be a date. Then the meal was over and they were still there, unwilling to let the evening end. She narrowed her eyes at Rick. He was thinking something again.

“What?” Juliet chuckled.

Rick’s eyes flicked down sheepishly for a second, then met hers again. “D’you wanna dance, Jules?”

Juliet caught her breath, then caught her smile before it flooded onto her face, betraying her. Instead, with the polite smile she had been brought up to use in such circumstances, she nodded. “I would like that very much.”

The music was quieter out here, but not too much so, and there was no shortage of space. Traffic trundled by on the roads surrounding the plaza, quieter now that the rush hour had passed. Voices floated up from both inside and outside the restaurants around them.

“Well, how am I doing?” Rick asked, catching her as she spun back towards him.

“With the dancing or the date?” Juliet teased, smiling.

“I think we all know my dancing is beyond question,” he countered, grinning back at her.

“Well, it is better than your singing,” she mused, giggling.

“Hey!”

“Hmm,” Juliet pretended to consider seriously. “I don’t know. I think I might need a few more dates to decide.”

“A few more, huh?” Rick laughed. “Okay, how about a picnic in a park tomorrow, then maybe a day at a museum on Monday, then dinner and a movie, or maybe a ghost tour. I don’t know: how many extra days do you think we could get away with here?”

“I don’t know,” sighed Juliet, “but those sound perfect to me.”

The music changed to a slower tune and Juliet realised how close they already were. She let her hand slide the rest of the way up from his arm onto his back and rested her head on his shoulder. It was the next logical move wasn’t it? She started breathing again when Rick lifted their joined hands to place hers over his heart and hold it there. Juliet closed her eyes and let the music wash over her. She could stay like this forever.

“Jules?” Rick’s voice was quiet and soft. Softer than she’d ever heard it.

“Hmm?” Juliet murmured, unwilling to break the moment.

“What are we doing here?”

“What?” Juliet opened her eyes. The music filtered through but the rest of the world – the bar, the people, the traffic on the road nearby – all of it seemed to have died away. She lifted her head and met Rick’s eyes. They were almost nose to nose.

“What are we doing here,” Rick repeated, watching her steadily. There were no jokes now. No puns. “Because it feels like maybe we’re heading for a line we can’t uncross.”

Juliet scanned his face for clues. For once, there were none. “Is that a bad thing?”

Below her hand, still held in place by his, she felt his heart beat faster.

“I gotta ask you something,” he answered hesitantly. “And I’m worried it’s gonna make things difficult between us, but…”

“Ask me,” she cut in, half certain she already knew what it was. “Just ask me.”

“You and Thomas…?”

“Are business partners and that’s all,” she assured him. “We’ve never been anything more than that. Never will be.”

“Never?”

“He’s like the annoying younger brother I never had! Or wanted!”

“He is a brother to me, and I can’t…”

“Can we please stop talking about Magnum now?”

“I just…It’s not just about that. I… I’ve walked this road before.”

“I know,” Juliet’s hand slid up, out of his grasp, to cradle his face. “I have too, remember?”

His eyes closed at her touch. His forehead drifted forward to rest on hers. Juliet closed her eyes and felt his free hand brush the hair back from her face and drift down her back to rest on her waist.

“We cross the line this time we can’t… I can’t… turn back,” murmured Rick.

“Do you honestly still think that I could?”

“You sure?”

“Rick, listen to me: I feel more at home here than I have anywhere in years, maybe ever” she replied. “Not here as in London, here as in right here. Right here, right now, in your arms, I feel like I am finally _home_. Like I am _exactly_ where I ought to be. Where I want to be.”

Juliet had thought they were as close as could be. She was wrong. She felt Rick’s arms pull her closer as their lips finally met, then there was nothing else but him.

~Fin~

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